Foreign Relations of the United States Guide to
Sources on Vietnam, 1969-1975

Prepared by Edward C. Keefer, John M. Carland, and Bradley L. Coleman
Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
Released February 1, 2012

The Vietnam war is one of the best documented events in U.S. history.
Federal agencies generated a large and unique variety of archival material
during the conflict, from traditional memoranda and telegrams, to
backchannel messages and White House tape recordings. This guide to
archival resources, based on the work of the Office of the Historian, U.S.
Department of State, describes the sources used to compile the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) documentary
series on the Vietnam war during the Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford
Administrations, from January 1969 to May 1975. Despite the expansive
coverage dedicated to the Vietnam war in the Foreign
Relations series, space constraints forced Department of State
historians to choose carefully among the thousands of documents produced
during the conflict. This guide aims to provide a road map for researchers
seeking to go beyond documents included in Foreign
Relations to archival resources housed both in Washington and in
various locations around the country.

In compiling the Foreign Relations series, Department
of State historians had a very specific mission to capture: the documentary
record of high-level policy decisions and civilian direction and management
of the war; U.S. political and military strategy; peace negotiations with
the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the National
Liberation Front (NLF); U.S. support for the armed forces of the Republic of
Vietnam (South Vietnam); and diplomatic, political, and economic relations
with South Vietnam. The five Foreign Relations
volumes covering the Nixon and Ford administrations contain notes on
sources, annotated source lists, and copious footnotes. Readers should use
this guide in conjunction with the published volumes. Before undertaking
archival research, researches should study carefully the documentation
contained in the Foreign Relations volumes on Vietnam
from 1969 to 1975. Researchers can purchase the volumes through the U.S.
Government Printing Office or view them free of charge on the Office of the
Historian, U.S. Department of State website (http://history.state.gov). In
keeping with prevailing scholarly practices, documents researchers initially
encounter in the series should be cited to Foreign
Relations.

During the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, the President directed that the
U.S. military limit operations to South Vietnam, with the exception of the
U.S. air campaign against the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the intermittent bombing
of the North during Rolling Thunder. Department of State historians
covering this period determined it desirable to segregate the conflicts in
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia into separate Foreign
Relations volumes. When Richard Nixon entered office in January 1969,
however, the President and Special Assistant for National Security Henry
Kissinger expanded the war beyond South Vietnam into enemy sanctuaries in
Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. For this reason, Foreign Relations volumes covering Vietnam during this phase of the
war document events across Southeast Asia, including activities such as the
invasions of Cambodia (1970) and Laos (1971); the widespread bombing of
North Vietnam (1972); and the SS Mayaguez incident
(1975).

After a careful reading of the Foreign Relations
volumes, researchers should consult the extensive Presidential papers and
other White House records at the Nixon Presidential Materials Project. In
2010 the Nixon records were transferred from the National Archives in
College Park, Maryland to the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda,
California. Within this collection, the most valuable information bearing
on the administration’s management of the Vietnam War and its search for a
negotiated peace in Southeast Asia are the National Security Council (NSC)
Files.

Two sub-files within the NSC materials provide the best documentation: the
Vietnam Subject Files and the Country Files for Vietnam. These files hold
the working records of the NSC staff members responsible for analyzing
information on Vietnam for Kissinger, who in turn would use their analyses
in his communications with President Nixon. The Vietnam Subject Files is a
topical collection that deals not only with Vietnam but also with Laos,
Cambodia, Thailand, and Southeast Asia as a whole. For example, material on
the 1971 U.S.-supported South Vietnamese cross-border operation, Lam Son
719, is in the Vietnam Subject Files under the sub-file Special Operations
File. Although the Vietnam Subject Files collection is weighed towards
military issues, it also contains abundant records on the attempt to manage
the peace process in Vietnam after January 1973. Like other Nixon records,
the archivists have prepared finding aids with folder titles. The Vietnam
Country Files collection, consisting of 29 Hollinger boxes, holds diplomatic
and political material primarily about Vietnam and U.S. relations with the
Republic of Vietnam. The boxes, folders, and items within are organized
chronologically. In some cases there are sub-chronologies in each folder of
Department of State cables, intelligence cables, and memoranda. The Vietnam
Country Files is the single most cited collection in the five Foreign Relations volumes on Vietnam from 1969 to
1975.

The Far East Country Files, 31 Hollinger boxes, contain folders on Cambodia,
Laos, Southeast Asia, Indochina, and Thailand. Although similar in
organization to the Vietnam Country Files, it lacks specific subject
folders, but does include topical and issue-specific folders. Additionally,
there is a Cambodian Operations File, consisting of 21 Hollinger boxes, that
contains a combination of chronological and topical records covering the
U.S.-South Vietnamese movement into Cambodia from April to July 1970. The
files consist mostly of daily situation and action reports, including many
to the President, as well as longer reports and briefings to Congress and
others on the Cambodian operation. The Nodis/Khmer section of this file
focuses on efforts by various nations to support the Cambodian effort.

The search for a negotiated peace is a principal theme of the Foreign Relations coverage of the Vietnam war. Official
peace negotiations were held in Paris at the International Conference Center
on Avenue Kléber. Documentation on these talks, consisting of some 28
Hollinger boxes, is located in the Paris/Talks Meeting Files. This file
begins during the Johnson administration and contains the records—mostly
cables to and from the delegation in Paris—of the W. Averell Harriman and
Cyrus Vance Mission (HARVAN), from May 1968 to January 1969. During the
Nixon administration, the file covers cable traffic between the Department
of State and the delegation in Paris, and to and from the Embassy in
Saigon. There are a few topical folders in the collection with
non-telegraphic material, but it is essentially a cables file with the bulk
of the material dated between 1969 and 1970.

The Nixon administration preferred to use private talks in Paris, as opposed
to the official public sessions at Avenue Kléber, as the primary venue for
serious negotiations. In August 1969, Washington and Hanoi opened a secret
negotiations channel. At these discussions, Kissinger represented the
United States and Hanoi’s Chief Delegate at Paris Xuan Thuy, later joined by
Special Adviser Le Duc Tho, represented North Vietnam. Le Duc Tho was a
member of the Politburo in Hanoi and the real chief of the delegation. The
records of the Kissinger and Xuan Thuy-Le Duc Tho negotiations were
maintained by NSC staff member Winston Lord, the principal note taker for
these secret meetings, and are located in the NSC Files, For the
President’s—China/Vietnam Negotiations, C.D. [Camp David]. This file
includes virtually all verbatim memoranda of the secret talks, as well as
summary memoranda prepared by Kissinger and his staff for the President.
This collection also reveals how Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and South
Vietnamese President Thieu kept abreast of the negotiations. In all, the
Vietnam negotiations portion of the file maintained by Winston Lord fills 24
Hollinger boxes. A second file by the same name exists in the NSC Files,
and consists of 3 Hollinger boxes containing mostly copies of Kissinger’s
secret talks with Le Duc Tho, original letters from Thieu to Nixon from late
1972 to early 1973, and memoranda of conversations for Kissinger’s trip to
South Vietnam in October 1972 and Haig’s trip in November 1972.

As for U.S.-Soviet relations, the Nixon administration wanted Moscow to
pressure North Vietnam into a political settlement. To this end, Nixon and
Kissinger engaged in private talks with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Fedorovich
Dobrynin. Nine Hollinger boxes of records related to those meeting are in
the NSC Files, President’s Trip File, Dobrynin/Kissinger.

Following the aforementioned collections, next in importance are several
other collections within the NSC Files. The first is the Backchannel Files
which contain secret communications between the White House (essentially the
President or Kissinger) and U.S. ambassadors, conducted without the
knowledge of the official Department of State bureaucracy. Although the
collection includes all backchannel messages, a good portion relate to
backchannel messages between the White House and Ambassadors Bunker and
Graham A. Martin in Saigon, and to and from other ambassadors in Southeast
Asia. For 1969, however, backchannel communications between the White House
and Ambassador Bunker are filed in the Vietnam Subject File. On almost all
occasions, these backchannel messages were more important to the policy
process than the regular Department of State telegrams. Backchannel
messages to and from U.S. negotiators in Paris are also in this
collection.

The Kissinger Office Files—the records of the Special Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs maintained by his immediate
staff—are also in the NSC Files. A key source for documents on U.S. policy
toward Vietnam, this collection contains Kissinger’s trip files, items such
as briefing books, memoranda, and memoranda of conversations relating to his
travels. These records cover his visit to Saigon in October 1972 to confer
with President Nguyen Van Thieu; his negotiating sessions in Paris with Le
Duc Tho; his February 1973 Hanoi visit; and activities related to the June
1973 Joint Communiqué. The Kissinger Office Files also have separate
Country Files, Far East, sub-section that contains records on Cambodia,
especially relating to the efforts of Colonel Jonathan “Fred” Ladd, sent to
Phnom Penh by the President, to bolster the fighting ability of Lon Nol’s
armed forces. A Vietnam-South Vietnam Country File, which covers 1971–1972
and contains a sub-section on Vietnam-Vietnam Negotiations, are also in the
Office Files but, it should be emphasized, the most important material on
this issue is in the For the President’s Files.

Valuable documents relating to Vietnam are in other collections in the NSC
Files. The Haig Chronological Files includes memoranda, correspondence, and
message traffic to and from Haig, much of it relating to Vietnam. It also
contains one box of transcripts of a number of telephone conversations among
Haig, Nixon, Kissinger, and other NSC staff members. These transcripts do
not seem to appear elsewhere and often contain significant policy
discussions. The Haig Special File has material arranged topically, much of
which relates to Haig’s trips to South Vietnam (aimed at informing President
Thieu about the state of the negotiations and, more importantly, at
persuading him to accept the American proposals and approach). This file
also includes documents on Haig’s trips to other Southeast Asian nations.
The Agency File, Department of Defense, contains considerable documentation
on Vietnam, while the Subject Files (as opposed to the Vietnam Subject
Files) hold only occasional Vietnam-related items, some of which is useful,
such as Items to Discuss with the President. A chronological collection of
documents within the NSC Files, the President’s Daily Briefing Files often
include reports on Vietnam with handwritten comments by President Nixon.
Finally, the Unfiled Material contains documentation on Vietnam. Made up of
material not filed after the President resigned, the collection has no
finding aid or organizational logic except that it is organized by
date—earliest to latest. There is no easy way to review it except document
by document.

The NSC Files in the Nixon Presidential Materials also contain the National
Security Council Institutional Files (H-Files), which should not to be
confused with the NSC Institutional Matters File (a sub-file of the NSC
Files comprising 19 boxes). The H-Files, consisting of 315 boxes, until
recently were under the control of the NSC but have now been transferred to
the Nixon Presidential Library. These files contain the minutes of National
Security Council Meetings and NSC subgroups such as the Review Group/Senior
Review Group and the Washington Special Actions Group (WSAG), chaired by
Kissinger and attended by deputy heads of the federal agencies and the
Director of Central Intelligence. Furthermore, for each set of minutes
there are corresponding folders containing papers Kissinger used to prepare
for the meetings. For Vietnam and Southeast Asia, the WSAG functioned as
the key policy and crisis management entity. It dealt, sometimes on a daily
basis during critical periods, with events in Vietnam and Southeast Asia,
making policy decisions, or asking the President to make the decisions, and
following up on Presidential directives. In addition, this file hold
records of the Vietnam Special Study Group (VSSG), a White House dominated
organization established to provide the President and Kissinger with
independent analysis and advice. Also of value in the Institutional
(H-Files) are the National Security Study Memoranda/National Security
Decision Memoranda (NSSM/NSDM) Files, containing requests for studies, the
studies themselves, and resulting decision memoranda.

While the NSC Files and the NSC Institutional Files are the premier
collections for Vietnam and Southeast Asia, additional useful collections
exist in the Nixon Presidential Materials. For example, in the White House
Special Files one finds the H. R. Haldeman Files, which holds Haldeman’s
handwritten accounts of his daily activities. During his time at the White
House, Haldeman at first wrote and later dictated a daily diary. Although
not a foreign policy expert, he was a close confidant of the President and,
as Chief of Staff, very close to, and observant of, the decision making
process. His diary is a treasure trove of great historical significance.
Available on compact disk (The Haldeman Diaries, the
Multi-Media Edition), a selection of key entries have been published in
book form by G. Putnam and Sons as The Haldeman Diaries:
Inside the Nixon White House. Additionally, the Nixon Presidential
Diary, an appointments diary indicating where the President was and with
whom he met or spoke on a given day, is an essential tool for researchers
and is found in the White House Central Files, Staff Member and Office
Files.

The archival sources at the Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
offer the best coverage of the final months of the Vietnam war, including
domestic political activities, the evacuation of Phnom Penh and Saigon, and
the SS Mayaguez affair. The Presidential Country
Files for East Asia and the Pacific contain invaluable documents, including
memoranda, correspondence, telegrams, and reports. Organized by country
name, there are 10 Hollinger boxes with materials exclusively related to
U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. The NSC East Asia and Pacific Affairs
Staff Files offer additional documentation, including a chronological file,
SS Mayaguez papers, and items generated for WSAG and
NSC meetings. Valuable backchannel communications with Ambassador Martin
and other Southeast Asian ambassadors fill 2 Hollinger boxes. Additionally,
the library houses Ford administration H-Files, which include briefing
books, memoranda, and WSAG meetings minutes produced during the U.S.
evacuation of Cambodia and South Vietnam. A small collection of National
Security Agency material at the Ford Library includes the text of helicopter
radio communications during the April 1975 emergency. Researchers should
also consult the Agency Files, NSC Vietnam Information Group Files, NSC
Congressional Relations Files, NSC Meeting files, Kissinger and Scowcroft
West Wing Files, Brent Scowcroft Daily Work Files, White House Central
Files, Legislative Inter-Departmental Working Group Files, and Wolfgang
Lehmann Papers. The library maintains detailed findings aids (available
online) for each collection. There are also 10 Hollinger boxes of documents
removed from the Embassy by Ambassador Martin during the evacuation, a
unique collection considering the embassy staff destroyed or scattered most
records covering the period from 1974 to 1975 during the final days in
Saigon. Combined with the Martin backchannel messages, these records offer
a detailed account of the Embassy’s experience, important considering the
Ambassador’s great personal influence on the handling of the evacuation.

The Henry Kissinger Papers at the Library of Congress are likewise valuable.
Although the collection is not open to the public, Kissinger permitted
Department of State historians access to these records for use in the Foreign Relations series. Material in the papers often
replicate documents found in other collections; it nonetheless holds some
unique material. Foremost in this category are the transcripts of Kissinger
telephone conversations based on notes taken by a secretary listening in on
the phone at Kissinger’s office at the White House or transcribed from tapes
recordings from his home telephone. Needless to say, the Kissinger
telephone conversations are a key source for Vietnam War policy. While
general researchers cannot use the transcripts at the Library of Congress,
Kissinger has allowed copies to be transferred to the National Archives,
where most are open to the public.

Other than the transcripts of telephone conversations, Kissinger’s speeches
and writings, and his Record of Schedule (appointment diary), the Kissinger
Papers are segregated into a classified file (secret and below), a
top-secret file, and a section containing a limited amount of restricted
data and special compartmentalized information. In this material, the best
collection for Vietnam and Southeast Asia is the Geopolitical File, which
contains a wide-ranging section on Vietnam and smaller files on Cambodia and
Laos. Also of value within the Kissinger Papers are the Memoranda to the
President File, the Memoranda of Conversations File, and the Presidential
File. However, none of these deal exclusively with Vietnam and Southeast
Asia.

The Department of State, Department of Defense, and to a lesser extent the
Central Intelligence Agency, although strong bureaucratic players in the
Johnson Administration’s policymaking, played a reduced role under President
Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who concentrated policymaking in the White
House. The files of the Department of State, especially the Central Files
and certain Lot Files, are valuable for tracking events in Vietnam, Laos,
and Cambodia, and at the Paris Talks. Before Kissinger became Secretary of
State in September 1973, Department of State records offer poor coverage of
U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia, because Nixon and Kissinger intentionally
excluded the Secretary of State and the Department from the Vietnam
decision-making process. Still, some of the Central Files are useful for
political, economic, and military developments in Southeast Asia from 1969
to 1974, including POL 27 CAMB/KHMER, POL 27 LAOS, and POL 27 VIET S. While
ostensibly the designation for military operations in Vietnam, and to a
lesser extent Laos and Cambodia, POL 27 became a catchall file.
Consequently, it is a good source of material for those interested in
political developments in Saigon, Vientiane, or Phnom Penh. In the Lot
Files one finds Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker’s weekly and later monthly
summaries of events in South Vietnam to President Nixon. They covered in
detail the government, politics, the economy, and the war. Although the
President rarely read the reports, they nonetheless provide a useful account
of important events in South Vietnam; they have been collected and published
as The Bunker Papers, Reports to
the President from Vietnam, 1967–1973 (Berkeley, 1990). The Central
Files offer Vietnam-related documents through mid-1973, after which the
Department captured memoranda, telegrams, and other records electronically.
Researchers can search and retrieve these later items through a National
Archives archival database.

Beginning in September 1973, when Kissinger became the Secretary of State,
the Department again played an active role in the policymaking process. The
Records of Henry Kissinger (26 Hollinger boxes), 1973–1977, Entry 5403,
Record Group 59, at the National Archives contain documents related to
Vietnam. The Transcripts of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meetings
(11 Hollinger boxes), Entry 5117, Record Group 59, are also useful.
Researchers may likewise consult the U.S. Foreign Service post records.
Although they offer little on high policy, the post files are filled with
reports and communications on local conditions and activities. In the
absence of U.S. initiative after mid-1973, moreover, the story of U.S.
involvement in South East Asia often centers on embassy activity. The post
files, however, provide inconsistent coverage of U.S. activities abroad
because many records did not survive the fall of Saigon. The best
preserved, the Phnom Penh Embassy Files, Record Group 84, offer detailed
coverage of U.S. activities in Cambodia. Large portions of the Saigon
Embassy collection, on the other hand, were lost in 1975. The most complete
collection of Saigon Embassy documents for the period from 1974 to 1975 is
located at the Ford Library, not the National Archives. Also, while they
offer thin coverage of the years between 1969 and 1974, the Lot Files of the
Bureau of East Asian Affairs Files, Record Group 59, can be useful for
researchers interested in the ending of the Vietnam War.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) records are essential for documenting
the role of intelligence in the war in Southeast Asia. Even so, the most
important finished intelligence can be found in the Nixon Presidential
Materials, NSC Files. The CIA prepared a daily briefing for the President
on Vietnam that is in the National Security Council Files, President’s Daily
Briefings. Additionally, useful collections under CIA’s physical custody
are the National Intelligence Center (NIC) Files, which contain many
intelligence estimates and memoranda. Of particular significance are the
records of George Carver, Special Assistant for the Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI), for Vietnam Affairs. As the CIA’s foremost Washington
expert on Vietnam and Southeast Asia, his files are central to understanding
the interplay between intelligence and foreign policy. The same is true for
the DCI (Helms) Files and DCI Executive Registry Files, although these files
also include material on non-Vietnam issues that engaged the DCI. The
National Intelligence Council’s Estimative Products on
Vietnam, 1948–1975, published in 2005, contains a good selection of
intelligence estimates on Vietnam. In most cases, Foreign
Relations volumes print only the summaries of the National Intelligence
and Special Intelligence estimates while the full texts are published in the
in the NIC publication. Intelligence Files for the Nixon and Ford
Administrations, including the records of the 303 Committee/40 Committee and
related subject files for Vietnam and Southeast Asia were particularly
valuable for documenting covert operations and unconventional warfare. They
are currently in the custody of the National Security Council, but are
destined for the Nixon and Ford Presidential Libraries. A Department of
State Lot file, the INR/IL Historical Files, holds valuable material for
these topics and is similar to the Nixon Intelligence Files. These files
remain in the control of the Department of State.

The Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird were key
players in the formation of policy towards Vietnam. Department of State
historians conducted extensive research in the Department of Defense records
now housed at the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland.
Still classified, these files include secret and top-secret documents,
organized by office, year, and subject. These files will likely move to the
National Archives in College Park upon declassification. The Defense
Secretary’s key memoranda are almost always in the NSC Files in the Nixon
and Ford collections.

At the Ford Library, a collection of documents covers Laird’s tenure as
Secretary of Defense. His staff chose these Laird Papers at the end of his
term as Secretary of Defense with a view to documenting his major decisions
and accomplishments. The Papers of James R. Schlesinger, Secretary of
Defense from 1973 to 1975, are located at the Library of Congress.
Schlessinger’s collection holds memoranda, reports, and communications
related to his government service, but is not yet open to the public. Major
portions of the Laird and Schlesinger collections concern Vietnam, Cambodia,
and POW/MIA affairs. In addition, the official files of the Secretary of
Defense, Under Secretary of Defense, and their Assistants, plus the records
of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs,
have large sections devoted to Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Defense related records that were not available when the first volumes were
being researched, but are worthy of mention as sources, are the records of
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in Record Group 218 at the National
Archives—specifically those of General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman,
1964–1970; Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, 1970–1974; and General George S. Brown,
1974–1978—in the National Archives. The most useful sections of these
records are the Chairman’s correspondence to and from the Commander,
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, correspondence to and from the
Commander in Chief, Pacific Command, and additional miscellaneous Vietnam
related documents in various country folders.

Another JCS collection, Admiral Moorer’s Diary, reveals significant
information about the policymaking process. Only made available when the
final Foreign Relations volumes in the Vietnam series
were being researched, the Diary contains entries for practically every day
during his tour of duty as Chairman. Each day’s entry contains a series of
sub-entries about meetings (in his office, in Secretary Laird’s, at the
White House, or elsewhere), telephone conversations, or reflections on
policy matters and other topics. Appended to most daily entries are one or
more documents. Especially useful to the researcher are memoranda for the
record Moorer drafted after meetings with President Nixon or with Kissinger,
internal memoranda from one of his own subordinates or external ones from
Kissinger or Kissinger’s Deputy, Alexander M. Haig, or from other members of
the Nixon Administration. What gives special value to the already immensely
valuable diary and its attached documents is that Moorer taped and
transcribed many of his telephone conversations and attached the transcripts
to the Diary. These transcripts of conversation—a few with Nixon but more
often with Kissinger; Haig; Laird; Admiral John S. McCain (Commander in
Chief, Pacific); Generals Creighton W. Abrams and Fred C. Weyand (theater
commanders in Saigon); and the Admiral’s own senior subordinate at the
Pentagon—reveal the extraordinary and substantial role Moorer played in the
formation and implementation of U.S. national security policy in Southeast
Asia.

After February 1971, the White House Presidential Recordings are a critical
source for understanding Vietnam policy developments and to a lesser extent
for policy in Cambodia and Laos. The recordings that are transcribed and
cited in the Foreign Relations volumes comprise only
a small portion of the recordings available. Using the tape log, and
comparing entries with the meetings and conversations for which there are
written records, the editors and the Nixon Tape team at the Office of the
Historian have selected policy-significant recordings of meetings and
telephone conversations. While tape conversations are difficult to
transcribe and do not always lend themselves easily to insertion in
documentary publication, the selection presented in these volumes is a
representative of the larger body of conversations. Nixon and his close
confidants spent hours talking in the President’s Oval and Executive Office
Building office. Their conversations were often unstructured and repetitive,
their language frank, raw, and often uncomplimentary to individuals and
institutions. While it is the immediacy and apparent unguarded natured of
recorded conversations, whether of individuals talking on a telephone or in
an office, that give such conversations the reputation for truthfulness they
enjoy among historians and others, it should be emphasized that it is just
as possible to shade the truth, or lie, in conversations as it is in the
more calculated act of writing. At the same time, when recordings exist, as
the Nixon White House tapes do, they become an integral part of the
historical record and impose on historians the obligation to exploit them as
best they can. These tapes are an almost breathtaking resource but must be
used with caution and viewed within the broader context. Volumes in the Foreign Relations series provide just such a context.

What makes the Nixon administration’s records on Vietnam especially revealing
is the existence of these unique sources. The presidential tapes
recordings, the Kissinger telephone conversations, the Haldeman Diaries, and
the Moorer Diary and telephone conversations provide an added dimension of
documentary material. Taken in conjunction with the more traditional
records, these special sources deepen one’s understanding of the characters
involved and how they interacted with others and with the circumstances they
encountered. By extension, they also provide a great understanding of the
policymaking process.

In sum, the records of the Nixon and Ford administrations on Vietnam are a
rich and abundant resource but pose some substantial challenges to
researchers. Even with five volumes covering the conflict from 1969 to
1975, only a small fraction of the total documentation will be printed in
the Foreign Relations series. The editors of these
volumes believe, however, that they have selected the most significant
documents available for understanding the policy process. Furthermore, they
have added value to their selections through annotation and editorial
notes. While Department of State historians have had to make difficult
choices, they believe that the resulting documentary collections provide a
solid account of policy decisions by the Nixon and Ford Administrations on
the Vietnam War and will stimulate additional research on U.S. involvement
in the still-controversial war.